Medicare, health care, Howard's 'American Dream' Julia Gillard - Shadow Minister for Health

Speech

Transcript - Robert McClelland’s Fundraising Dinner, Sydney - 7 November 2003

Introduction

I would like to thank Robert McClelland for inviting me to join you tonight.

It is good to be among real people after a week in the weird and distorted world that is our national parliament.

It is a world where a government that gives a terrorist a tourist visa to come to Australia wants to be lauded for being strong on national security. Fortunately, Robert McClelland was there to expose that particular hypocrisy.

It is a world in which a government that downscales coastal surveillance around an island that the Minister for Immigration describes as a ‘convenient dropping off point', then wants to politically profit from a boat arriving.

It is a world in which the Treasurer thinks he can make you believe paying more on your huge Sydney mortgages is good economic news.

And it's a world in which John Howard, the man who has devoted his political life to destroying Medicare, now says he is a great supporter of it and the rules prevent you from simply calling him what he should be called – a liar. And if he wants to sue me for being that direct I would imagine there are a number of lawyers in this room who would relish the challenge of prosecuting the case in a court of a law!

It's a world with all the weirdness, but none of the charm, of the County of the Land of Oz. Indeed, John Howard would be a great starter for the role of the Wizard of Oz, a man who many believe has the power to accomplish almost anything, but who turns out to be a charlatan. Remember how in the movie, the Wizard first appears as a figure of awe but is exposed by Dorothy and Toto as nothing but a pathetic, shambling, gutless, lying, greying old bully yelling empty threats down a hidden microphone.

And Peter Costello would have to be the standout for the role of the Cowardly Lion. The man who believes he would be a better Prime Minister than the incumbent but lacks the courage to act.

And Phillip Ruddock would be the Tin Man, the man without a heart.

And the backbench could all take turns being the Scarecrow, lacking the brains to realise that you can't deal with the issue that matters to people, the future of Medicare, by putting in charge of it a man known as a boxer, a hard man, an attack dog. A man who has distinguished himself in the last week by denying the government had any role in ensuring bulkbilling and by saying that was a matter between a doctor and a patient.

And a man who showed just out of touch he was by responding to a question about a war widow, on a pension, with a son on a disability pension who has lost 35kg in weight because he just can't eat and because the Howard Government ripped $100 million out of public dentistry he can't get the care he needs. Boxing Tony's answer was that they should get private health insurance. Two pensioners with a combined weekly income of $476, should buy a health insurance product that would cost them $32 a month with a gap payment of $800. Absurd and cruel.

John Howard's American Dream

Before the last sitting week, Parliament sat especially for the purpose of watching John Howard look as excited as a kid in a sweet shop over having President George W Bush address our Parliament.

We know why he was so excited. It wasn't over the prospect of a Free Trade deal or new defence arrangements with the U.S.

It's not just cheap software or expensive pharmaceuticals John Howard wants to import from George Bush.

He wants to import the American Republicans' politics, values and society.

It's interesting to look at what John Howard said to George Bush in the Parliament before his address. People have overlooked his actual words:

The things that unite the Australian and American people are shared values: the belief that the individual is more important than the state, that strong families are a nation's greatest asset, that competitive free enterprise is the ultimate foundation of national wealth, and that the worth of a person is determined by that person's character and hard work, not by their religion or race or colour or creed or social background.

They may be the values of the United States, and we may share them in part, but they're not the things I think of when I think about Australia's values.

Where are the references to mateship, the fair go, looking after each other? Where are the references to strong public services? To opportunity? To a nation-building role for Government?

They were missing because deep down John Howard just doesn't believe in them.

There are many great things to admire in the United States, but Australia is different. And John Howard just can't see it.

The fact is, John Howard wants to Americanise our whole society.

We've seen already how he has successfully imported to Australia the nastier elements of American politics.

The dogwhistle wedge politics we saw at the last election was lifted straight off the shelf from George Bush's senior political strategist, Karl Rove.

But John Howard also wants to kick away the unique, egalitarian society that we've created here in Australia.

He constantly wraps himself in the flag, but at heart he doesn't likethe sort of place Australia turned out to be – the country of the fair go.

He wants to make us a country we won't be able to recognise just a few years from now – the country where you sink or swim.

And it all starts with importing the Republican idea of the role of government.

Like the Bush Republicans, the Howard Liberals are dedicated to rolling back the great social gains of the 20^th Century.

Fundamentally they want government to get out of the way so that the market can take care of everything.

They oppose the whole idea of government itself. They seek power in order to dismantle government. They believe that: "Government is the problem!"

We in Labor believe that Government should be part of the solution.

The Future of Health under Howard

Nowhere is this better demonstrated than in health – where John Howard's American-style philosophy of government is a recipe for the unravelling of all of the values we hold so dear here in Australia.

A recent book by the American writer Barbara Ehrenreich – Nickled and Dimed – carries a timely warning for us if we go down the American route – especially in health policy.

In it she describes the life of the low-paid in America, where you only qualify for the equivalent of bulk billing if you're actually on welfare.

Working families – even the very low paid – have to pay for expensive private health insurance.

Sound familiar?

As a result 45 million Americans now go without any health cover at all.

Just like they did here in Australia before the Whitlam Government gave us Medibank.

And just like they did again after the Fraser Government destroyed it.

Barbara Ehrenreich makes the point that these people live in constant fear of illness.

They have missing teeth.

They go without drugs.

They don't treat illnesses early and end up much sicker, or worse.

Pain, she tells us, is something that working Americans ‘have to get through'.

A consultation with a GP can cost $150.

Essential drugs that are available free here on the PBS can cost hundreds, and even thousands of dollars.

Imagine a society where single parents have to work 2 jobs so they can afford private medical cover.

That's the sort of society John Howard will create by destroying Medicare.

And despite all this, it's a society that spends 50 percent more of its GDP on health care than we do.

It's the sort of health system we can't afford, don't want and don't need to have.

That's why Labor's going to save Medicare.

It's an absolutely essential part of the fairer society we want to save here in Australia.

Without Medicare there is no fair go. Without Medicare there is no security for families, and no easygoing Australian way of life.

So the choice at the next election is simple: a vote for Labor is a vote to save Medicare, and a vote for the Liberals is a vote to destroy it.

Never forget what John Howard really believes about Medicare. During the 1980s he campaigned against it, saying he wanted to pull it right apart, and he described bulk billing as a rort.

He's now appointed his attack dog, Tony Abbott, to kill Medicare.

He says he appointed Abbott to ‘fix' Medicare. He'll fix it all right. Just like he ‘fixed' the unions and Peter Reith ‘fixed' the waterfront.

Of course John Howard and Tony Abbott are about to engage in a dishonest campaign to convince the Australian people that they really do care about Medicare.

To save their electoral hide, they're going to roll the pork barrel down the main street of every marginal seat in the country and ladle out the lies and the false hope.

Just like they did about our universities before the last election. They told us there was no crisis. They offered illusory cash. And then, after the election they slugged our children with higher debts and higher fees.

Using what happened to our universities as an example, let me make a prediction about what will happen over the next few months.

In the lead up to the election, they will tell us that there's no crisis in our health system. They'll tell us that the system's fine. That while bulk billing levels may have fallen, they're still OK and, anyway, the system was never meant to be universal.

Then ‘to make Medicare even fairer and stronger' they'll hand out bogus incentives to doctors to bulk bill, pledge to put extra resources in health hotspots, invent new safety net arrangements and come up with all sorts of new IT plans to supposedly streamline the health system.

And almost every dollar will be targeted at vulnerable marginal seats.

Of course, after the election the story will suddenly change.

Tony Abbott will tell us that he's received new figures.

We'll be told that, in fact, the health system is in crisis, and that, surprise, surprise, drastic reforms will be needed to pay to fund the necessary changes.

What will be on the agenda then?

• The end of bulk billing;
• Pressure on the States to charge fees for public hospitals; and
• Provision for people with private insurance to opt out of the Medicare Levy.

In other words – the American-style health care system John Howard has always wanted. The health system he gave us as Malcolm Fraser's Treasurer. And the health system in which only the very rich and the very poor can afford to get sick.

Friends, when you hear those sweet words from the new, kinder, gentler, softer Tony Abbott, don't believe them.

Don't believe the man who himself said you can't trust politicians. Don't believe the man who set up Australians for Honest Politics and then lied about it.

Tony Abbott is John Howard's pet, his pet attack dog.

And like John Howard, he wants to rip Medicare apart and let the market take over.

That is not the sort of health system a civilised society should ever condone.

Labor's Plan to Save Medicare

Labor has a real, fully-costed, $1.9 billion plan to save Medicare.

It starts with rescuing bulk billing.

Every Australian should have the right to see a doctor or attend a public hospital without charge. I won't say for free – because it's not free. Australians have already paid for it with their Medicare Levy and their taxes.

To save bulk billing, we will lift the patient rebate for bulk billing for all Australians, no matter where they live, or how much they earn.

Recently I announced that to give families access to bulk billing and relieve pressure on our public hospitals, Labor will send up to 100 teams of GPs and nurses to communities where bulk billing rates are low.

But we must do more.

Our task is nothing less than to save Medicare itself.

It's true that times have changed since Medicare was introduced.

Our health system is much more complex, and much more expensive than it was when as ‘Medibank' it was first introduced nearly thirty years ago.

To strengthen it we must modernise it.

But we must never undermine Medicare's fundamental principle – universality.

Real reform of Medicare will take a national effort of cooperation between the states and the Commonwealth.

The argument between the state and federal governments over who is responsible for the state of our health system must be leaving all Australians feeling cold.

They don't care that it's the federal government that funds the doctors, the states that fund hospitals and the federal government that funds aged care.

All they know is they pay their taxes, they pay their Medicare levy and they want access to a hospital bed, a doctor who bulk bills and aged care for their grandparents.

They want an end to the buckpassing and the blame shifting. They want cooperation.

And the possibility of Labor Governments in every state, both the territories and in Canberra – for the first time in our nation's history – gives us the chance to achieve that cooperation.

I have signalled that one of the first acts of a Crean Labor Government will be the establishment of a new National Health Reform Commission to drive the reform process.

It will bring together all the major players including the Commonwealth, all State and Territory Governments, the heads of major statutory authorities, a representative group of managers from major public hospitals and health services, consumers, doctors and other health professionals, health unions and the private health sector.

And its findings will start to be implemented within 12 months of Labor taking office.

Conclusion

At the coming federal election we have a choice.

A choice between a dishonest political fix for Medicare, or a plan to save Medicare.

A choice between a party that believes in using government to benefit the whole of society, and a party that wants to destroy government to let the market run everything.

This choice makes the next election the most important election in the last three decades. It will determine what sort of society we want to be.

A country that continues to live out its promise as the country of the fair go, or a country, like America, where you sink or swim.

I trust the good sense of the Australian people.

That's why I think John Howard should be worried.